"But all my friends are in there!"

        I realize this post may show itself to be a little oxymoronic since I am writing it on my blog and plan to share it on Facebook, but hear me out anyway and don't hold back your opinions on the matter if you have one. I'm sure you do, just don't write them down in a loutish manner and I will gladly read it! 

        Over the last few years I have been completely caught up in online social networking. Marrying and moving away from friends and family to a place I couldn't stand drove me to any means available to escape it. Eventually, if I wasn't asleep or at work I was glued to my computer screen. Chatting with friends who honestly could have cared less about my new life and blatantly ignoring the dozens of lonely, like-minded individuals surrounding me. Once my oldest daughter was born, I used Facebook and mothering forums to make my days go by faster. I felt I couldn't do anything or go anywhere without her being attached to me like a little leach day and night, so I escaped to other worlds. And then, as time flew by, I added Pinterest to my list of windows to escape life through. It's all so harmless, you're just keeping up with old friends and learning new stuff right? No. Wrong! What you really end up doing is stalking your friends and wondering why your life is so different. It can become an obsession, late nights reading other people's walls wondering why they don't seem to have a care in the world, and little vines of envy creeping into your soul as you see them living exciting lives traveling abroad and always surrounded by a crowd of friends in their pictures. Sick, right?

       Enter baby number two and my life has changed. I can no longer spend hours writing to friends or browsing Pinterest boards while nursing this baby. I can barely even get through a full feeding without having to put her down and chase/rescue/discipline my life-loving toddler! What really disturbes me is that I would get annoyed (yes, I said it) at my toddler for wanting my attention when all I wanted to do was check out of life for awhile to look at pretty pictures of creative things to make so she could have a better life.

        The irony is that during that whole time I tried none of those projects I pinned on my organized boards with whitty labels. Finally after one night of wasting a whopping four hours browsing knitting patterns (I can't even knit!) it struck me that I was a complete and utter fool. I was accumulating enough wasted hours to equal days and getting nothing other than homework and an occasional meal accomplished. Some women joke about this but I found it completely sick and irresponsible. Instead of thinking about deleting my Pinterest account, I decided to actually do it and never look back.

        The funny thing about deleting my Pinterest account about a month ago is that I don't miss it! I also don't miss the multiple forums I followed either. I won't delete Facebook since that is my way of keeping in touch and sharing photos of my daughters with my family but I have decided that it's best for me and my girls if I'm only on there before they get up in the morning or after they are in bed at night. Deleting my carefully photographed face from several social networking sites has freed so many hours in a day and helped me see what belonging to them really was...an addiction.

        I've invested those hours into my family, housekeeping, and school. Honestly I feel that I am a slowly becoming a better person now. I no longer feel that I have to know the latest news about everyone on an hourly basis. Seriously! It's downright sick! And those who feel they need to update their bubble of friends and family on an hourly or even "several-times-a-daily" really do not have very exciting or fulfilling lives. You are often  living off of any response you can get through drama, controversial subjects, or pity parties. Sorry, totally callous but it's true peoples. I can be this harsh because I am guilty of this!

So I guess what I'm really trying to say is...get a life!

            Bored out of your mind?

                             Buy a book, pick up a real hobby that enriches your life and gives you a skill, teach yourself to be creative, clean and organize your sloppy house, play some games with your children, cook your way through a cookbook, start exercising, sign up for a class that interests you, walk dogs at the animal shelter, or even.......wait for it.....

                               make some new friends!

        This ramble is mainly targeting young women, singles or mothers, even though I know that other demographic groups could be applied. Still, I wrote it mostly for you as a challenge to make your life a little richer. Could you delete one of the sites you are hopelessly addicted to? Would you even consider it? Are you always wishing you had more time as you scroll through endless pages of totally useless, yet useful information?

        A few months ago my husband taped a piece of paper to the back of a chair so I would see it as I left for class in the morning. It was the Proverbs 31 passage. Yeah, you know which one I'm talking about. The one that I actually avoided reading all these years because I heard a lot, and do I ever mean a LOT, of hypocritical, stuffy older women talk endlessly about how every wife needs to be a "Proverbs 31 Woman." Blah, blah, BLAH, blah, blah... Oh please!!! Yeah, well my husband made a mistake. He didn't put the reference to the chapter on there. I was thrilled over such a loving gesture and read it over and over in the weeks to follow. At the bottom he wrote something to the effect that the woman described in the passage was how he saw me. I fell completely in love with this passage and even underlined parts of it and found myself looking up some of the words.

        So imagine my complete and utter shock/horror when I finally got curious enough to look up the passage and found it under Proverbs 31! I still haven't completely recovered. But hey, its really not that bad and you all should read it. Once you do, think a little... She's an incredibly sexy, powerhouse of a businesswoman! Do you want to be that incredibly awesome?  I do and I'm absolutely thrilled that my man sees me in that light already. That's kind of been my motivation for using my time wisely... so what's yours?